subscribe

Pages

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

It all started with those kitschy toilet-paper cover dolls:

I think every grandmother was required by law to make enough of these things for her family to cover a mountain of TP. (My personal favorite was our red-dressed flamenco dancer. You?) After this was done, those dear crafty souls had to come up with new ways to use their stockpile of doll torsos.

Enter: the doll cake!

It was understandable when at first children assumed they were being served yarn and TP. Here Jenn L. is saying, "How about you put that over there and go fetch me my real cake, before someone throws a hissy, Ok?"

Fast forward 30 years or so, and doll cakes have come a long way. Why, just look at all the diverse styles they come in now!

Oh my god. Oh the childhood memories. I too had a plastic dolly in a giant mountain of frosting, for my 6th birthday in fact. I'll have to dig up the picture sometime.That guy in a mesh shirt really is something though.

The Easy chair, lap full of candles is definitely the best. Great post to end the Valentine's marathon -- your cake photos over that heart holiday were so hilarious, I didn't know how you would follow. These were great!!

OMG, that had me ROTFL! If CCC is your nemesis, doll cakes are mine. I don't understand the fascination with placing 1/2 (or all) of a plastic toy down into the cake. It's kind of dirty....but, hey, if that's what they want....

Sad! My mom made a Lady Lovely Locks cake for my 7th birthday and she's not a professional decorator and her doll cakes always turned out fabulous. I'll have to look for a picture - these took me back to those good 'doll' days...

Thanks Jen, now I'm going to be humming Barbie Girl all day.That said, I love the "girls shouldn't have all the fun" cake. It brings back fond memories of the first drag show I went to in college (hey I was in the arts department what do you expect?)Good times...thankfully we never had one of those toilet paper holders.*skips off singing, "Make me walk make me talk, do whatever you please I can act like a star, I can beg on my knees...."*GAAAAH!

My mouth fell open in shock at the Dolly Pardon cake---what will they think of next? She does not even look like a dolly. But, guys?? Seriously?? A Ken doll? And the ring around his neck on a chain? What does it mean?

I almost bought a cake just to send a picture to Cakewrecks, but I had no other need for it, and frankly I was afraid of it. It was a doll cake, though - and the lid wasn't tall enough for the torso of the doll, so the bakery had cut a hole in the lid. Since the display was sitting almost literally in the doorway of the store - and the cake was definitely for sale - I'm sure that it was nice and sanitary and there were no surprise gnats or other foul things in there. Completely sure of that.

OMG, I love the one with "Earring Magic Ken" otherwise known as the first openly gay Ken doll. When that Ken came out one of my anthropology professors was so excited she bought one and brought it to class :)

Chihuahua: yes, it is a c**k ring. Earring Majic Ken came with: an earring (plus a pair for his lucky owner), a purple mesh shirt, black pants, loafers, and the lovely silver necklace. Oddly, he wasn't on the market very long. i think he is considered to be collectors item now.

I totally had a doll cake when i was a kid! I was so happy in the pictures!! The doll had a beautiful dress made of fluffy pink frosting.. I loved it (well I can't actually remember the cake, but it appears from the pictures that I loved it...)

OMG, that third one is totally Courtney Love... That said, my grandma actually made the dolls for our beds and not toilet paper. Still only a torso in a dress, but it was meant to sit as a decoration on the pillows. I put mine through the washer. She died.

I made one of these for my daughter's 4th birthday! It was pretty atrocious, but I didnt pay $50 for it! I had to break Barbie's legs off to get the proportions right. You can see it here in all its glory!

I loved this post! It makes me not feel so bad about my own experience with A Doll Cake. I posted my first experience here http://gladysspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/12/because-you-asked.html making my very own Barbie Cake for my Grandaughter. It was a Pink Peptobismal Explosion of Barbie goodness.

Ah, yes. Eaaring Magic Ken. Yes, folks, you're seeing the upper half of the outfit he actually came in,(minus the purple leather-look vest) complete with, um...an ornamental pendant. My college dorm mates chipped in to buy one of these as a tree-topper for our dorm Christmas tree. We made paper wings and a pipe-cleaner halo for him. Wanna make a cake outta that?

for the do-it-yourselfers out there, they sell half-doll-torsos-on-a-stick at joann fabrics in the bridal section. everytime i see them i have a flashback to a wedding i was in.... the maid of honor was sooooo excited about the "treats" she made for all of the bridesmaids. i'm sure you can guess they were doll cakes, but she gave them all haircuts and proportions so they were eerily similar to us in our dresses. i saved mine to "show my mom", took it home, and promptly disposed of it. i was pretty sure it was trying to steal my soul.

Awww man! I should send you the picture of my Goth Chick doll cake a good friend made for my birthday one year. Her top was made from electrical tape and she had black hair with purple streaks (like me at the time). Granted, it wasn't professional but it was darn good!

Wow, I'm surprised no one has commented on the Hawaiian doll's icing top. There's so much that could be said about that...And I totally have 'Barbie Girl' in my head. I'll be singing that for weeks :-(

DANG! That Ken doll cake is just...WRONG! Dude, if you must put Ken in drag do it right and put some make-up on the poor guy for god's sake. And give him a good looking hat and purse to match his outfit.

when I was about 8 my mother made one of these and it turned out freally well actually! she baked the cake in the mixing bowl from her Cuisenart and decorated it minimally with swoops of "fabric". I think the best part is she just took the top half of a dollar store "baribe" with a barbie top and put it on top. That way you didn't have to pull the whole barbie out. It makes me sad that other have had such "barbie ballgown" disasters. I suppose when you don't have much you can often do a lot.

I LOVE these wrecks!!! I am guilty of making one of these for my daughters 4th birthday and wondered about where to put the candles... we opted for in the cupcakes made from the extra cake mix as opposed to trying to set her lap on fire.

Oh, and the pictures from the beginning. I was at a family wedding when I was a little girl where the wedding cake was a traditional tiered cake plus there were SEVEN of these doll cakes each in a different color for the bride and bridesmaids to match with the actual wedding party!!! I wish I had a picture of that one!

Reminds me of about 12 or so years ago when Mattel brought out a Birthday Barbie when she was popping out of a cake. I referred to it as 'stripper Barbie' I still wish I had picked one up because they disappeared pretty quickly off the shelves probably after some complaints.

Thank you now I am singing Climb Every Mountain, I appreciate it. The "Easy Chair" one looks more like she's terrified of catching on fire or like there was a big gust of air that was only from the waste up.

ROFL! Too bad about Dolly's arms, because otherwise that would be one rockin' cake. Well, not for a five-year-old's birthday, which is what I presume most doll cakes are for. But I like her.

The Ken cake is awesome too except that no self-respecting drag queen would wear a skirt that ugly.

But anyway, I've never SEEN a TP cozy version of a doll cake before! Did the TP cozies really come first? They are truly awful, of course, but then, so is that entire class of objects. Decorative TP covers are just weird no matter WHAT they're supposed to look like. (I will admit to a small fondness for certain Kleenex box covers though.)

OMG! I saw a couple of these being made on an old episode of Martha Stewart recently (via her daughter's show on FLN called "Whatever, Martha! -- incredibly funny, I'd recommend it) and thought of this website immediately.

So I'm very excited/pleased/vindicated to see the doll cakes showcased here today.

AAAH! My mom made me a barbie cake for my birthday one year and I LOVED IT! My birthday's in Halloween so she was a witch - dark green icing, too, which made all us kids happy because we could run around with abnormally-colored tongues.

I will never, ever listen to Barbie Girl the same way ever again.I wonder......why would someone make a KEN cake? Doesn't everybody hate that doll? (shivers)Thank God my mother never made a Barbie cake. she always made a castle or a ladybug.

no no no no no. these are TOO ABSURD! please tell me WHAT is happening with the teapot one- ARM! what happened?? also, like always- the commentary is spot on, esp regarding the shaving brush barbie. excellent.

And someone always gets to lick the frosting off! I remember that from one of my childhood friends bday parties. Her older brother, probably like 10yrs, got to lick the frosting off. Yeah, bad mom. But I've always wanted one...even in adult life I still want what I couldn't have as a child. That's probably while the're still made because people are giving their kids what they didn't get. Weird. What's with the 10ft tall cake and the angled pattern?

I thought maybe the Ken one was supposed to be Scottish, but that just wouldn't explain the mesh shirt and earring/necklace combo. I would love to hear the backstory to that one.(Should I admit to making a bridal dolly cake for a wedding shower several years ago? I still have the poor half-doll pick around somewhere....)

i am most disturbed, actually, by the hawaiian doll's lick-off frosting bikini. that was before the mention of what may or may not be around ken doll's neck. now i'm in a serious moral debate about which is less appropriate for children...

I always loved loved loved my mom's doll cakes. There were all very "Gone With the Wind" although I always felt bad that the poor doll is actually an amputee from the waist down. These however are just awful!

Sadly, my soon to be 7 year-old wants one of these so bad. She loves Barbies and saw one at the grocery store. I have been trying to think how to utilize my basic baking skils to make one 'cuz $50 for a cake (especially one as hideous) is outrageous.

Hey now...I am getting my feelings hurt here. I made one of those for my daughter's birthday a few years ago. It was a "princess cake" and she asked for it after seeing one in a Wilton book. It was better looking than these...but really, pretty standard for a little girl's birthday. My daughter loved it! Those of you who are disgusted are either jealous you never got one, you have never had a 4 year old daughter, or you throw some lame birthday parties!!!!

Of course, you wash the doll in soap and warm water and maybe bleach and rinse and dry...no big deal! Granted...the cake pictured rate from, "what pan did they use for that?!" to "Yuck!"

did you ever see the crocheted mushroom to cover the ajax can? i still have that one in the living room on the entertainment center w/ a 30 year old little plastic bottle of ajax because it's just too bizarre.

my sister and i had doll cakes when we were kids, but thankfully, mom took her time when she made them and they came out really nice. otherwise i think we both would have needed therapy. for some reason my mom still had the doll torso in a kitchen drawer until sometime after i graduated high school. i'm not sure if she was planning on making a doll cake while we were in our teens or what. i'll have to check next time i'm at her house and see if it's finally gone.

That Ken doll cake may be my favorite thing ever. Who thought that would be a good idea? Did s/he do it in secret, or did this idea actually pass through more than one person's hands? Because if more than one person didn't see the problem with that cake... well, just color me flabbergasted. Or grateful, I suppose, because now I get to look at it all the time.

This cracks me up and brings back a tragic memory: Me, an excited 8-year-old, smiling at the doll cake placed in front of me. A crowd of friends and family look on with delight as I make my wish. Then...FOOM!! Her hair goes up in flames as I blow out the candles! Cue fire extinguisher and uncontrollable sobs. "Nekked" Barbie has a nasty charred scalp and the room reeks of burning hair. Ahhh...the memories. Thanks for digging up that old wound :)

You can buy a regular Barbie (as opposed to generic doll picks) and wrap her legs in plastic wrap before inserting her in the cake. That way b'day girl gets a new Barbie. Probably no less sanitary than eating out at a restaurant...lol.

As far as Hula girl Barbie, I think it's actually kind of cool. But every doll cake I ever saw had the torso covered in frosting, usually those star tips making a dress top of some kind. So for all the *gasp* lickable tops, they've been making doll cakes that way for as long as there have actually been doll cakes. No kid ever thinks about it.

Mona, use a mixing bowl to make the skirt, as in actually bake it in there. That's basically what they are.

I had one of these, my sister had one, my stepdaughter had one in her turn. Most of these cakes (not Ken or Dolly Parton obviously) are made for little girls who adore ruffles and flowers and pink and purple, preferably with sparkles. I LOVED these cakes as a kid.

At my boyfriend's camp there's a disturbing red satin/black lace miniature merrywidow hanging in the bathroom (which is otherwise decorated with license plates). I think it holds toiletries, and maybe the little garter clips on the bottom hold towels??? I don't know why, or who thought it was a good idea.

I've ordered my first special order "professional" cake and am getting it tomorrow. I'm nervous, but also kind of excited, because I know if it's a wreck, I'll get to post it here and that'll be a pretty good consolation prize!

Of course, my 3.5 year old was looking at my screen, and now I've PROMISED her one of those cakes for her next birthday. Not what you intended, huh? LOL Well, I guess I now need to find someone willing to make one for her to look like a princess. I think you are allowed to love Kitch at 4. ;)

These comments always make me chuckle--and it is so good to see folks helping each other with how to make the cake skirt. But, the story of the candles being blown out and the Barbie hair catching on fire---yikes. I only had sons...but, they would have loved that extra! wow These cakes and directions need to come with warnings.

*giggles madly!* I love love love the Ken cake. I so want to make one like that. (of course not with the origional Ken they used! Though I actually think I have that somewhere.....my sister gave over all her barbies when I got pregnant... I had boys, lol!)

I'm happy to say I never asked for or got a Barbie cake. I'd so have tossed that puppy!

My girlfriend had one of these cakes years ago. I was initially very jealous. All I remember about it is that she ended up looking a lot like Michael Jackson on the set of the infamous 1984 Pepsi commercial where his hair went up in flames.

It's hard to enjoy cake when there is a toxic haze and the odor of liquified plastic polymers hanging over the dining room table.

Come, now, the hawaiian one wasn't so bad. I was more surprised not by the skirt but the huge red nipples she was sporting.

Um, should I mention I will be making one of these lovely doll cakes for my beloved soon-to-be-4 yr olds birthday next week? She asked for it, and since I'm a slave to birthday whims, I will happily fulfill her wishes.

I just saw on Facebook a friend of mine that made a doll cake for her daughters birthday. It was very recent and it looked just like the first picture only it was blue. Very funny! My first thought when i saw it was 'Cake Wreck' and then i saw this. Perfect. . .

I had a Barbie themed party when I was about 5 or 6. Had one of these doll cakes, then proceeded to play with the Barbie for years after. Mine looked so much better than these, however. Well balanced skirt, in pink if I remember correctly.

LOL! I've made two doll cakes for my daughters so far (I have 3 girls, two of which are old enough to be princess fanatics). I'm not a professional and I like to think both of mine came out way better than these lol

btw - hubby's long-time friend made one of these for her daughter a couple years ago and she pulled the legs off before putting the doll in. That's much wierder than pulling out the doll legs and all...

Oh my...these are hysterical! I am going to be repeating the 'my lap is on fi-yur' part for days, I just know it!

What horrifying to me is those are professional cakes! I made a Cinderella Barbie cake for my daughter's 5th birthday - bought the Cinderella doll and wrapped her in plastic wrap before assembly. It turned out great! And it honestly was not that hard! Goodness!

Seeing those cakes reminded me of how I came to have a favorite grandma and a not-so-favorite one (both loving and caring, in their own way). It all started 6 months before my 4th bday with my boy cousin's AWESOME train cake. I knew that was what I wanted! But the grandma who made that cake was insistent that girls didn't want train cakes; they wanted doll cakes. And so, that's what I got for my party with dad's side of the fam. Mom's mom made me the best train cake EVER when she heard how disappointed I was when I got the doll cake.

Re those toilet paper dolls... my mom used to make them for every bridal shower. One for the bride complete with a veil and flowers, and then of course one for each bridesmaid in the color of bridesmaids dresses. We still have one that my cousin gave us when my mom made hers. We thought it was pretty kitschy then, but now that mom's been gone 16 years we love it!

LMBO this was an eye opener Fred Smilek is the acting president of the Society to Save Endangered Species. It was founded two years ago by Fred Smilek along with his two best friends Charles and Jonathan. http://www.fredjsmilek.com

I remember asking for a Barbie cake on at least one occasion when I was younger. I think my sister did, too, and we thought they were awesome. My mom's cakes all looked a thousand times better than these, though. To be perfectly honest, if I had a daughter I would totally make her a Barbie cake.

Search This Blog

Wreck the Halls

NEW! Pre-Order Today!

Buy the Book

Buy the NYT Bestseller

What's a Wreck?

What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

order

Where's the book?

We don’t have any copies of Cake Wrecks for sale here, autographed or otherwise. We decided the shipping and handling costs would be too high to make it worth your while. So instead, buy your copies locally or online and then order personalized bookplates: it’s cheaper, easier, and I think even looks a bit nicer.

Ordering Info

Payments must be made through Paypal, which accepts all major credit cards. Sorry, but that means no checks or MOs or barter-based chickens.

We ship everything first class USPS, and will do our best to have your package in the mail within 2 days of your order.